Living in The Shadows

I peek outside my window moving the dual ripped red curtain aside to see if anyone was there.  I see the shadows of marching men approaching.  I swiftly jolt back and lie on the floor so no one could see me.  I’m scared and Shake in the presence of any authorities here.  I’m all alone in this old, empty broken down tool shed right on the edge of town.  

The numbers of them keep increasing each week.  And, it’s harder for me to keep hiding from them.  I’m cold and hungry.  Every night is a dangerous journey for me.  I know they’re trying to wipe us all out.

I use to be a Musician back in Syria, where I taught various ranges of string instruments.  And now that’s all gone.  My days of music making are lost.  I may never hear or get to play music ever again.

I’m not the only Syrian refugee here.  There are others, and each night we gather so we could share the food we were able to get.  When their gone, I quietly sneak away to a place we all gather.  

“Sorry guys, I got nothing tonight.” I sighed.  

I approached the group, we all sat in a circle and put out what we had.  There is about Seventeen of us now.  Myself being new, adding to the group.  Everyone here is friendly, even though I don’t usually contribute anything, I do contribute the news.  Aside from myself we got the boss, Elias.

He’s the one who was made mostly in charge, most of his family is here is why.  He’s the oldest, that’s how he was made leader.  And there’s my best friend, Amir.  He’s the only Iraqi refugee among us. We had similar situations where a war broke out in our country and now we ended up here, in Moscow, Russia.  We’re all in this together, trying to survive.  

We all break up when sunrise hits, for all of us to be in one place for too long would be a bad idea.  I get up right before sunrise to start searching for food, roaming throughout the town.  In the day I’m safe, I try to blend in.  I’ll see some of the others from time to time and it worries me.  One day they might find out, simply by hearing anyone of us talk could get one of us exposed.

I often look to God to give me guidance.  I know he’s watching, and has a plan for us, for me.  I’m sad to only be able to pray to him at night.  But, I know he understands.  I know there are plenty of other refugees we can take in but, that would be dangerous to make our group too big.

We have three locations we switch to right now for when we gather.  We make sure it stays inside the group, and no one else knows when we're switching.  Lighting a candle, I bring up the concerns.  

“Elias, our locations may no longer be a safe place to hide out.” I said anxious.

“Why’s that?” He replied.

“The number of Russian authorities scouting the area is going up in numbers, It’s getting worse.  Their doing all kinds of police investigations on people.  They’ll lock us all up, or even worse, kill us!”

He pauses and thinks for a bit.  Rubbing his bread he pulls out a crumpled map from his pocket.  He lays it flat in front of me. “Exactly where, Nizar?”

I point and show the two locations I had concerns about.  We discuss the situation thoroughly and carefully.

“Now, are you sure about this?” Elias said worried. “Because you do know what that means?”

“Yes, I’m sure” I replied.  

We sat through half the night thinking of what we were going to do next.  This possibly means giving up two of our locations or finding others to go to.  Elias sent myself and a couple others to go check during the day if keeping any of them would be a possibility.  In the meantime while we did that, he worked on finding other possible locations.   

By the time sunrise came along we had nothing, no good news.  No more hope for those two locations.  Tonight, we will all search together as a group for other locations.  All of us being bummed out, that morning I ended up running into Amir.  We greeted each other with cheek kisses.  I look from a distance and here music, the Moscow victory day parade was taking place not to far from here.  I look down and see two small children with a toddler in one's hands, huddled right behind him.  

“Who are they, Amir?” I asked.

“Oh, them?  They're other Syrians.  Their rescues.  Oh, and some of my family made it too!  Some of my aunts and uncles.” He paused.  “My parents though, I’m not sure about yet.  The war over in Iraq and in Syria is only getting worse, so more are being pushed over here.  Which is bad because obviously they don’t want us here.”

I stand there in silence for a bit thinking.  These are only children, and I know we can’t take his whole family in.  Maybe just the children but, It’ll be hard to feed them.  I take a second to pull him aside.

“Have you talked to Elias about this?” I said to him in concern.

“No-well I’m going to.  I will.” He said back.

“If you're going to do it, do it now.  We have other problems to deal with.  It’s better if this is addressed as soon as possible.”

“Okay, okay.  I’ll go do that right now then.”

“Good, move fast. The music is getting louder.”  

He leaves with the little ones close to his side.  I pray Elias will let them in if not anyone else.  

Night hits once again and I can hear arguing quite loud from a distance.  As I approach I try to swiftly hurry over to see what the commotion is all about.  

“Hey shh!  You guys are way too loud!  I can hear you all the way from out there you know!” I shout trying to hush them all up before we all get heard.

I look to see Elias and Amir with a lot of people behind them arguing about miscellaneous topics.  Amir did not just bring the kids.  He brought almost his whole family and friends who made it here from Iraq that he could find, and who else knows who.  I told him not to!  It was literally now the Syrians v.s the Iraqis. No one was working together or negotiating anymore, just fighting.  It wasn’t even the topic I thought it would be on, at least not anymore.

From across the room I hear various unsettling things.  People started getting heated and it was impossible to break it all up at this point.  Just when it looked like a fight was going to break out I spot a bright flashing light from a distance.  I knew what was coming.  My eyes got wide and I froze in my place.

“Oh, sh*t.” I say to myself. “Idiots!”

I get into the middle of all the fighting.

“THEIR COMING!” I shout as loud as I could.

Everyone then became quiet.  I pointed towards the light and everyone in very loud whispers started arguing and freaking out.  Elias started appointing everyone through and out the back to start heading through the hills.  

It was cold and I was shivering, shivering in fear.  I kept looking back.  It seems like they keep getting closer and closer to us.  I say little prayers in my head as we all walk up and through the hills.  I’m scared.  More scared than I’ve ever been.  

I look back behind me and that’s when I hear a gunshot fire off.  I shut my eyes tight and duck my head.  That’s when everyone really started to panic.  We all ran as fast as we could and little did we know they had already caught on, and were right ahead of us, not only behind us.  They had us cornered for sure.  

A bunch of men rushed over with their firearms ready to shoot.  And that’s what they did.  They shot down three men right then and there, one of them being Elias.  I couldn’t bare to watch any of this.  I covered my face, and tried not to watched through the cracks of my fingers, but I did.

I saw Amir frightened with his eyes wide open, ready to die.  I watched him as he fell to his knees and lifted his hands.  Then they shot him.  That was the end of him, I never got the chance to say goodbye.  I pray to god we all get out of this safe, the ones who make it.  Shortly after that it didn’t take long for them to lock us up.  And here I am, locked behind cool steel bars.  Living, hoping, and praying for the day I get out of all this to tell my story.